I routinely write brief film reviews on Letterboxd, and so I thought I would share them on Instagram because why not? Anyway I watched Southern Comfort last night and do here’s my thoughts on this 80s thriller, which I hope you enjoy reading:
Playing out as a ‘Deliverance meets The Warriors’ hybrid, Walter Hill’s ‘Southern Comfort’relies upon characterisation and misguided cultural stereotypes in order to create what was designed to be a paranoia fuelled trip into the ‘hell’ of the American Deep South during the early 1970s.
While I have a fondness for ‘The Warriors’, this particular title offers little in the way of serious personal investment, but instead focusses on the machismo and male power struggles so often used to pass as humanistic exploration, and so with a simple narrative and some odd behaviour, the end result leaves little to bring you back for more once the credits have rolled.
In closing if you liked ‘Deliverance’ then don’t bother with this outing, as it will only detract from what was and still is, a cinematic classic with real heart and soul, but if like some, you haven’t seen the former picture, then this might make for an interesting watch after a night of beers and pizza, but besides that it’s best left to age slowly in a swamp somewhere. #films#deepsouth#1980s#neileganronayne#soldiers#action#filmreviews#lovefilm#cinema#thrillermovie

When I was in Mississippi, we went out to one of the buildings that my great-grandmother had her restaurant. Apparently, she set up in a few different places throughout the years, and just kind of ran a "kitchen," rather than a restaurant as we typically conceive of them. I also found out that one of my great uncles was putting together a family cook book before he died, never finished it, and now it's lost. Hearing that was disappointing, but it's still really amazing to know that my family has such a culinary history.
#heritage#restaurant#popup#kitchen#family#history#mississippi#deepsouth#southerncooking

Hello, greetings from my new homeplace. As a Southerner and native Northwestern Floridian, my blood runs deep in the kudzu and red dirt despite higher elevation. But I have a request for anyone, from any region of our country > Stop everything you are doing and read Paul Theroux's book Deep South right now, or tomorrow, preferrable with coffee, sweet tea, or a hot toddy. (Book Photos by talented and uber famous Steve McCurry, by the way). Let's go > ...
Travel journalists usually impress me with their courage to go beyond comfort zones, but Theroux is aware of his privilege as a white male writer, and it shows as he navigates the dark underbelly of Southern myths and the even darker side of ugly crimes rooted in race. Through his privilege, he does have access to places and people a woman or black writer may not have, which although a bleak point now, serves the public as he finds how little the South has changed after the Civil Rights era. But let not yee think this book is a preaching tome, a manisfesto of all we've done wrong as white Americans, or as modern American readers of any color. The author assumes we are intelligent enough to know what work is left to do. The book is chopped into fine small chapters for busy readers, and it doesn't choose to remain in only a swamp or on a rainbow. Here, you find history revisited (the author's visit to Faulkner's home is entertaining, not preachy), while his visit to Emmett Till's home town is akin to a trip to an post apocalyptic town, adorned with the blood of innocent black men almost tangible on the walls of empty broken buildings.
Read it. Be well. Be smarter.
@thebittersoutherner#southernergonewest#emmetttill#newsouth#mississippi#civilrights#jimcrow#deepsouth#book#writer#reader#south#southerner#southerngothic#currentlyreading#paultheroux#literature#literary

ful·fill·ment
/fo͝olˈfilmənt/
Learn to pronounce
noun
1.
the achievement of something desired, promised, or predicted.
"winning the championship was the fulfillment of a childhood dream"
CLEV “If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing”
#dallas#producer#deepsouth#texasborn#music

Mini-trek: Louisville, KY: nothing like a 10:00am bourbon tasting to kick off the day in bourbon country! Logan and I loved the Stitzel-Weller Distillery tour and got to see where Bulleit and other great bourbons were born. Logan has a new favorite: Blade & Bow. Have you been on a bourbon distillery tour? @gotolouisville#louisvillelove